A new technology in which insects are used to genetically modify crops could be converted into a dangerous, and possibly illegal, bioweapon, alleges a Science Policy Forum report released today. Naturally, the organization leading the research says it’s doing nothing of the sort.

The report is a response to a ongoing research program funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Dubbed “Insect Allies,” the idea is to create more resilient crops to help farmers deal with climate change, drought, frost, floods, salinity, and disease. But instead of modifying seeds in a lab, farmers would send fleets of insects into their crops, where the genetically modified bugs would do their work, “infecting” the plants with a special virus that passes along the new resilience genes.

It sounds like a something out of a horror movie: A town covered in thousands of webs, each crawling with hordes of spiders.

But for residents of a town in Greece, it's a spooky reality.In recent days, the webs have draped plants, trees and boats along the lagoon in Aitoliko, a town of canals that's otherwise known as Greece's "Little Venice."Giannis Giannakopoulos noticed the "veil of webs" earlier this week and captured the spider creations with his camera.

Thousands of years ago, ancient farmers grew oats, corn and wheat, just as they do today. They also cultivated rice and raised livestock. But a millennia ago, they cleared much more land than modern day farmers do, despite having fewer people to feed. That’s because farming was far less efficient. Mechanized harvesters didn’t exist, and growers had yet to develop crops that could be planted in tightly packed rows, yielding more food from less space.

The scientists used a computerized climate model to simulate the climate nearly 777,000 years ago. The climate back then looked more or less what the climate today would look like if not for the warming caused by carbon pollution from ancient farming and modern industrialization, he said. This climate model offered higher resolution than previous models used by the team.

Our ancient human relatives got around more than scientists previously thought. Researchers in China excavated stone tools that were likely made by our human ancestors some 2.12 million years ago — the earliest evidence ever discovered of the human lineage outside of Africa.

"It suggests a way earlier migration out of Africa than we ever would have imagined," said Michael Petraglia, a paleoanthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, who was not involved with the study. "It's very exciting."

WHEN RICK OSTFELD gets bitten by a tick, he knows right away. After decades studying tick-borne diseases as an ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, Ostfeld has been bitten more than 100 times, and his body now reacts to tick saliva with an intense burning sensation. He’s an exception. Most people don’t even notice that they’ve been bitten until after the pest has had time to suck up a blood meal and transfer any infections it has circulating in its spit.

Around the world, diseases spread by ticks are on the rise. Reported cases of Lyme, the most common US tick-borne illness, have quadrupled since the 1990s. Other life-threatening infections like anaplasmosis, babesiosis, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever are increasing in incidence even more quickly than Lyme. Meat allergies caused by tick bites have skyrocketed from a few dozen a decade ago to more than 5,000 in the US alone, according to experts. And new tick-borne pathogens are emerging at a troubling clip; since 2004, seven new viruses and bugs transmitted through tick bite have shown up in humans in the US.

The U.S. officially implemented tariffs on Chinese imports, to which China immediately retaliated to with levies of its own.

This tit-for-tat trade war would mostly impact states that voted “overwhelmingly” in favor of Trump in 2016 as they possess “jobs and output significantly affected by tariffs,” says Dana Peterson, Citi's North America economist.

She notes, “80 percent of ‘red’ states produce goods subject to retaliatory tariffs totaling 10 percent or more of GDP, compared to 10 percent of ‘blue’ states.”

Rats aren't only a part of New York City’s underground — they're an inseparable part of its pop culture. There’s Master Splinter from the Ninja Turtles, Pizza Rat, and even Cannibal Rat. But for every celebrity rat, there’s another 250,000 to 2 million anonymous rodents living in the city — and the city health department is fighting to bring down.

Last year, three people in a Bronx city block made the news for contracting leptospirosis through rat urine. Only two survived.

Geologists have identified a new section of California’s famous San Andreas Fault (SAF), which could be the site of the region’s next major earthquake, according to a study published in the journal Lithosphere.

The seismically active, 15.5-mile-long stretch is buried in silt at the bottom of the Salton Sea—a shallow, salty lake that sits directly on top of the SAF’s southern tip. It has been named the “Durmid Ladder” by the researchers from Utah State University (USU), because it consists of two master faults and hundreds of smaller rung-like faults that run perpendicular to these.

The Y chromosome may be a symbol of masculinity, but it is becoming increasingly clear that it is anything but strong and enduring. Although it carries the “master switch” gene, SRY, that determines whether an embryo will develop as male (XY) or female (XX), it contains very few other genes and is the only chromosome not necessary for life. Women, after all, manage just fine without one.

What’s more, the Y chromosome has degenerated rapidly, leaving females with two perfectly normal X chromosomes, but males with an X and a shrivelled Y. If the same rate of degeneration continues, the Y chromosome has just 4.6m years left before it disappears completely. This may sound like a long time, but it isn’t when you consider that life has existed on Earth for 3.5 billion years.

Lobsters may be one of the most popular crustaceans in the culinary arts. But when it comes to killing them, there’s a long and unresolved debate about how to do it humanely, and whether that extra consideration is even necessary.

The Swiss Federal Council issued an order this week banning cooks in Switzerland from placing live lobsters into pots of boiling water — joining a few other jurisdictions that have protections for the decapod crustaceans. Switzerland’s new measure stipulates that beginning March 1, lobsters must be knocked out — either by electric shock or “mechanical destruction” of the brain — before boiling them, according to Swiss public broadcaster RTS.

The announcement reignited a long-running debate: Can lobsters even feel pain?

People should stay away from romaine lettuce until U.S. and Canadian health officials get to the bottom of an outbreak of E. coli infections, Consumer Reports says.

The consumer advocacy group called on the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to do more to warn people about the outbreak, which at last count had made 58 people sick in the U.S. and Canada. One person has died.

The CDC last reported on the outbreak on December 28. It said 17 people were sick in 13 states, dating back to November. The Public Health Agency of Canada has reported on 41 illnesses.

“The Public Health Agency of Canada has identified romaine lettuce as the source of the outbreak in Canada,” the CDC said in its Dec. 28 statement.

From glitter bombs, beards, makeup and sparkly protest signs, glitter is a mainstay of modern LGBTQ culture. But U.K. scientists are urging the government to ban it because it’s apparently very bad for the environment.

If you’ve ever spilled glitter or used any on your body, than you understand that it never really completely goes away. (That’s part of the reason that glitter is sometimes called “raver scabies.”) It’s non-biodegradable and even when it’s thrown away or washed down the drain, it still ends up in our soil and water supply where it creates even more problems.

The issue, according to Josh Gabbatiss of The Independent, is that most glitter contains a plastic called polyethylene terephthalate (or PET). The PET contained in glitter is microplastic, a word that refers to any small bits of plastic that are smaller than a fifth of an inch.